Free Dark Places of the Soul: Dark Soul Trilogy - Book 1 by Paul Donaldson

right lane in
front of him and slowed to a speed matching his own. Noah had
noticed the car hugging the left side of the hi-way. A non-descript
vehicle, typically the oversized and boxy method of travel used by
upper middle classed senior citizens. Noah signaled for the left
lane and accelerated to pass. He possessed no desire to follow
grandma and grandpa vacationer on their trip through northern New
York.
    As his vehicle pulled parallel to the gray
car, Noah sought a quick peek into the world of those he passed.
The man behind the wheel wore more years on his frame than the
minister, but he wasn’t what Noah would have considered elderly.
The passenger was young, maybe the daughter of the driver. Noah
took note of the passenger’s bleached blond hair and Hollywood
features. He wondered how much of the woman in the neighboring car
was real.
    He turned his eyes back to the road. His
inattentive moment had consisted of nothing more than a glance. An
instant too long when a vehicle is moving at hi-way speed. Before
his eyes unglued from the interior of the gray car the passenger
sat upright and pointed a finger of recognition from her world to
his.

Chapter 10
     
     
     
     
    Out in front of their rented vehicle Candice
witnessed pure chaos, a poorly choreographed dance on blacktop. A
pick-up truck with a blown tire inflicted at highway speed, the
loss of control by a driver on the verge of boredom. All this led
to the crunching metal and screaming rubber of a collision. Zachary
did his best to avoid the four-wheeled catastrophe, as did the
vehicle passing them in the left hand lane. Candice had recognized
the male driver of the vehicle moving past them. She’d witnessed
his face in the many nightmares of Zachary’s death.
    Their gray rental car spun. Candice was forced to
watch the panoramic view spin through the passenger side window.
Her body whipped. Her momentum stopped abruptly due to the
collision of her head with the window on her side of the vehicle.
Zachary held the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip. Candice
realized her consciousness was vacating her mind. She floated on a
cloud, her body giving way to the centrifugal motion of the
surrounding world.
    No sound, no squealing tires, no angry cries of
steel chewing steel. Candice’s world became silent. She caught
Zachary’s expression, a grimace, pain and ecstasy mixed in one
moment of awareness. Zachary Wells, the old man who could take her
to new heights of popularity, wore the combined look of struggle
and gratification, similar to the expression gracing his face when
they made love. She often thought he could die of a heart attack in
her arms after sowing his oats inside her.
    He grabbed at his chest and all that had once been
Zachary Wells, the wealthy man of enviable power, vanished from his
face. As Candice faded into darkness, she knew her future was going
to change drastically.
     
    ***
     
    The front wheels of Noah Cote’s Ranchero
caught the median as he tried in vain to turn away the whipping
tail of the Chevy pick-up. The passenger side of the vehicle had
lifted off the ground before Noah was aware of the impending roll.
His equilibrium merged into a world without a central point of
gravity. Once onto his car’s roof, he slid to a complete stop while
the windshield imploded, leaving tiny fragments of glass
through-out his vehicle’s interior. He feared being struck from
behind by another out-of-control vehicle, an eighteen wheeler
barreling along on the grassy divider, crunching the same pastor
who had just been given reprieve from his sins.
    When his inverted car remained un-victimized
by another vehicle he struggled with the latch of his seat belt and
lowered himself onto the interior of the roof. The passenger window
was shattered, but remained within its frame. A contorted spider
web offered a warped view of the outside world. He pushed out the
broken fragments of glass with his feet and crawled through the
empty frame. Noah caught sight